Canon de 155 C mle 1917 Schneider
The Canon de 155 C mle 1917 Schneider (abbreviation for Canon de 155 Cour modéle 1917 Schneider) howitzer was the prime heavy howitzer of the French army during the Great War. It began as a private development of Schneider, in hopes of coming to an agreement with the Russian army. The design was being developed in order to equip the Russian army with heavy field howitzers. When the Great War broke out in 1914, the French army quickly had to face the fact that it urgently needed this modern kind of field howitzers. They had put to much trust in their famous "75", coming to the conclusion that it just wouldn't be enough in this war. The first model, the MLE 1915, used brass cases for the propellant, which was seen however as an impairment of the firing behaviour, and a new model, the LCL 1917, finally fixed the errors of the first model. The only real difference between the two models were some changes on the barrel lock. After the improvements, the 155mm C MLE 1917 Howitzer became an excellent artillery piece. The gun itself was relatively light, weighting in at only 1,245kg. It's range was about 11.500m when using the universal 43,5 shells. There were five different kinds of shells for the 155mm C MLE 1917, amongst which were high explosive, shrapnel and gas shells. The 155mm C MLE 1917 Howitzer was still in use with the French army when World War II broke out (there were also some numbers still in use with other countries, such as Finland, which used this gun to great effect during the winter war). After the capitulation of France in Juny 1940, the Germans will use the gun as the 15.5 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 414(f). Also in FHSW you can use the captured howitzer. With special thanks to Battlefield 1918 for sharing the howitzer. 155 mm howitzer M1917A4 When the USA entered the First World War in 1917, they had not enough modern equipment to join the battle. With support of France and Great Britain, they will take British and French equioment in service. One of them was the Canon de 155 C mle 1917 howitzer. Soon, they will design an own design based on the French gun wich become the 155 mm M1917A1 and the 155 mm M1918. After WWI the weapon received numerous upgrades including pneumatic tires, air brake system, new shield and all other updates so it can be use for high speed moves. The M1917A4 was in service at the start of WWII and was phased out as the newer M1A1 155mm "Long Tom" became available in 1942. The weapon saw service with numerous countries during both World Wars and then was moved out of service in most countries thru the late 1940s. Obice da 155/14 PB When the Greco-Italian war begun in October 1940, Greece had a total of 96 howitzers. As the time went by, in April 1941 Germany and Italy invaded Greece with the result of the Greek's capitulation, Italy captured all the Greek howitzers and use and renamed they as "Obice da 155/14 PB". During the Battle of France in 1940, Italy also captured 8 howitzers of this model. Later in September 1943, some Italian troops surrenderred to the Germans and the Germans captured and used the "Italian guns" as the 15.5 cm sFH 414(i). Also the Germans captured some howitzers of this model during the Invasion of France and Greece, and renamed they: 15.5 cm sFH 414(f) Category:French Equipment Category:German Equipment Category:American Equipment Category:Italian Equipment Category:Howitzer Category:Battlefield 1918 Category:Hungarian Equipment Category:Fieldgun